"Tell this then to Evenus, Cebes, and bid him farewell, and, if he iswise, to follow me as soon as he can. But I depart, as it seems, to-day;for so the Athenians order."

To this Simmias said: "What is this, Socrates, which you exhort Evenusto do? for I often meet with him; and from what I know of him, I ampretty certain that he will not at all be willing to comply with youradvice."

"What then," said he, "is not Evenus a philosopher?"

"To me he seems to be so," said Simmias.

"Then he will be willing," rejoined Socrates, "and so will everyone whoworthily engages in this study; perhaps indeed he will not commitviolence on himself, for that they say is not allowable." And as he saidthis he let down his leg from the bed on the ground, and in this posturecontinued during the remainder of the discussion.

Cebes then asked him: "What do you mean, Socrates, by saying that it isnot lawful to commit violence on one's self, but that a philosophershould be willing to follow one who is dying?"

"What, Cebes, have not you and Simmias, who have conversed familiarlywith Philolaus[40] on this subject, heard?"

[Footnote 40: A Pythagorean of Crotona.]

"Nothing very clearly, Socrates."

"I however speak only from hearsay; what then I have heard I have noscruple in telling. And perhaps it is most becoming for one who is aboutto travel there, to inquire and speculate about the journey thither,what kind we think it is. What else can one do in the interval beforesunset?"

"Why, then, Socrates, do they say that it is not allowable to kill one'sself? for I, as you asked just now, have heard both Philolaus, when helived with us, and several others say that it was not right to do this;but I never heard anything clear upon the subject from anyone."

"Then you should consider it attentively," said Socrates, "for perhapsyou may hear: probably, however, it will appear wonderful to you, ifthis alone of all other things is an universal truth,[41] and it neverhappens to a man, as is the case in all other things, that at some timesand to some persons only it is better to die than to live; yet thatthese men for whom it is better to die--this probably will appearwonderful to you--may not, without impiety, do this good to themselves,but must await another benefactor."

[Footnote 41: Namely, "that it is better to die than live."]

Then Cebes, gently smiling, said, speaking in his own dialect, "Jove bewitness."

"And indeed," said Socrates, "it would appear to be unreasonable, yetstill perhaps it has some reason on its side. The maxim indeed given onthis subject in the mystical doctrines,[42] that we men are in a kind ofprison, and that we ought not to free ourselves from it and escape,appears to me difficult to be understood, and not easy to penetrate.This however appears to me, Cebes, to be well said, that the gods takecare of us, and that we men are one of their possessions. Does it notseem so to you?"

[Footnote 42: Of Pythagoras.]

"It does," replied Cebes.

"Therefore," said he, "if one of your slaves were to kill himself,without your having intimated that you wished him to die, should you notbe angry with him, and should you not punish him if you could?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Perhaps then, in this point of view, it is not unreasonable to assert,that a man ought not to kill himself before the deity lays him under anecessity of doing so, such as that now laid on me."

"This, indeed," said Cebes, "appears to be probable. But what you saidjust now, Socrates, that philosophers should be very willing to die,appears to be an absurdity, if what we said just now is agreeable toreason, that it is God who takes care of us, and that we are hisproperty. For that the wisest men should not be grieved at leaving thatservice in which they govern them who are the best of all masters,namely, the gods, is not consistent with reason. For surely he cannotthink that he will take better care of himself when he has become free:but a foolish man might perhaps think thus, that he should fly from hismaster, and would not reflect that he ought not to fly from a good one,but should cling to him as much as possible, therefore he would flyagainst all reason; but a man of sense would desire to be constantlywith one better than himself. Thus, Socrates, the contrary of what youjust now said is likely to be the case; for it becomes the wise to begrieved at dying, but the foolish to rejoice."

Socrates, on hearing this, appeared to me to be pleased with thepertinacity of Cebes, and looking toward us said: "Cebes, you see,always searches out arguments, and is not at all willing to admit atonce anything one has said."

Whereupon Simmias replied: "But indeed, Socrates, Cebes appears to me,now, to say something to the purpose; for with what design should menreally wise fly from masters who are better than themselves, and soreadily leave them? And Cebes appears to me to direct his argumentagainst you, because you so easily endure to abandon both us and thosegood rulers--as you yourself confess--the gods."

"You speak justly," said Socrates, "for I think you mean that I ought tomake my defence to this charge, as if I were in a court of justice."

"Certainly," replied Simmias.

"Come then," said he, "I will endeavor to defend myself moresuccessfully before you than before the judges. For," he proceeded,"Simmias and Cebes, if I did not think that I should go first of allamong other deities who are both wise and good, and next among men whohave departed this life better than any here, I should be wrong in notgrieving at death: but now be assured, I hope to go among good men,though I would not positively assert it; that, however, I shall go amonggods who are perfectly good masters, be assured I can positively assertthis, if I can anything of the kind. So that, on this account, I am notso much troubled, but I entertain a good hope that something awaitsthose who die, and that, as was said long since, it will be far betterfor the good than the evil."

"What then, Socrates," said Simmias, "would you go away keeping thispersuasion to yourself, or would you impart it to us? For this goodappears to me to be also common to us; and at the same time it will bean apology for you, if you can persuade us to believe what you say."

"I will endeavor to do so," he said. "But first let us attend to Critohere, and see what it is he seems to have for some time wished to say."

"What else, Socrates," said Crito, "but what he who is to give you thepoison told me some time ago, that I should tell you to speak as littleas possible? For he says that men become too much heated by speaking,and that nothing of this kind ought to interfere with the poison, andthat, otherwise, those who did so were sometimes compelled to drink twoor three times."

To which Socrates replied: "Let him alone, and let him attend to his ownbusiness, and prepare to give it me twice, or, if occasion requires,even thrice."

"I was almost certain what you would say," answered Crito, "but he hasbeen some time pestering me."

"Never mind him," he rejoined.

"But now I wish to render an account to you, my judges, of the reasonwhy a man who has really devoted his life to philosophy, when he isabout to die appears to me, on good grounds, to have confidence, and toentertain a firm hope that the greatest good will befall him in theother world, when he has departed this life. How then this comes topass, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavor to explain.

"For as many as rightly apply themselves to philosophy seem to have leftall others in ignorance, that they aim at nothing else than to die andbe dead. If this then is true, it would surely be absurd to be anxiousabout nothing else than this during their whole life, but when itarrives, to be grieved at what they have been long anxious about andaimed at."

Upon this, Simmias, smiling, said: "By Jupiter, Socrates, though I amnot now at all inclined to smile, you have made me do so; for I thinkthat the multitude, if they heard this, would think it was very wellsaid in reference to philosophers, and that our countrymen particularlywould agree with you, that true philosophers do desire death, and thatthey are by no means ignorant that they deserve to suffer it."

"And indeed, Simmias, they would speak the truth, except in assertingthat they are not ignorant; for they are ignorant of the sense in whichtrue philosophers desire to die, and in what sense they deserve death,and what kind of death. But," he said, "let us take leave of them, andspeak to one another. Do we think that death is anything?"

"Certainly," replied Simmias.

"Is it anything else than the separation of the soul from the body? andis not this to die, for the body to be apart by itself separated fromthe soul, and for the soul to subsist apart by itself separated from thebody? Is death anything else than this?"

"No, but this," he replied.

"Consider then, my good friend, whether you are of the same opinion asme; for thus I think we shall understand better the subject we areconsidering. Does it appear to you to be becoming in a philosopher to beanxious about pleasures, as they are called, such as meats and drinks?"

"By no means, Socrates," said Simmias.

"But what? about the pleasures of love?"

"Not at all"

"What then? does such a man appear to you to think other bodilyindulgences of value? for instance, does he seem to you to value ordespise the possession of magnificent garments and sandals, and otherornaments of the body, except so far as necessity compels him to usethem?"

"The true philosopher," he answered, "appears to me to despise them."

"Does not, then," he continued, "the whole employment of such a manappear to you to be, not about the body, but to separate himself from itas much as possible, and be occupied about his soul?"

"It does."

"First of all, then, in such matters, does not the philosopher, aboveall other men, evidently free his soul as much as he can from communionwith the body?"

"It appears so."

"And it appears, Simmias, to the generality of men, that he who takes nopleasure in such things, and who does not use them, does not deserve tolive; but that he nearly approaches to death who cares nothing for thepleasures that subsist through the body."

"You speak very truly."

"But what with respect to the acquisition of wisdom, is the body animpediment or not, if anyone takes it with him as a partner in thesearch? What I mean is this: Do sight and hearing convey any truth tomen, or are they such as the poets constantly sing, who say that weneither hear nor see anything with accuracy? If, however, these bodilysenses are neither accurate nor clear, much less can the others be so:for they are all far inferior to these. Do they not seem so to you?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"When, then," said he, "does the soul light on the truth? for, when itattempts to consider anything in conjunction with the body, it is plainthat it is then led astray by it."

"You say truly."

"Must it not then be by reasoning, if at all, that any of the thingsthat really are become known to it?"

"Yes."

"And surely the soul then reasons best when none of these thingsdisturbs it, neither hearing, nor sight, nor pain, nor pleasure of anykind, but it retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave ofthe body, and, as far as it can, not communicating or being in contactwith it, it aims at the discovery of that which is."

"Such is the case."

"Does not then the soul of the philosopher, in these cases, despise thebody, and flee from it, and seek to retire within itself?"

"It appears so."

"But what as to such things as these, Simmias? Do we say that justiceitself is something or nothing?"

"We say it is something, by Jupiter."

"And that beauty and goodness are something?"

"How not?"

"Now, then, have you ever seen anything of this kind with your eyes?"

"By no means," he replied.

"Did you ever lay hold of them by any other bodily sense? but I speakgenerally, as of magnitude, health, strength, and, in a word, of theessence of everything, that is to say, what each is. Is then the exacttruth of these perceived by means of the body, or is it thus, whoeveramong us habituates himself to reflect most deeply and accurately oneach several thing about which he is considering, he will make thenearest approach to the knowledge of it?"

"Certainly."

"Would not he, then, do this with the utmost purity, who should in thehighest degree approach each subject by means of the mere mentalfaculties, neither employing the sight in conjunction with thereflective faculty, nor introducing any other sense together withreasoning; but who, using pure reflection by itself, should attempt tosearch out each essence purely by itself, freed as much as possible fromthe eyes and ears, and, in a word, from the whole body, as disturbingthe soul, and not suffering it to acquire truth and wisdom, when it isin communion with it. Is not he the person, Simmias, if any one can, whowill arrive at the knowledge of that which is?"

"You speak with wonderful truth, Socrates," replied Simmias.

"Wherefore," he said, "it necessarily follows from all this, that somesuch opinion as this should be entertained by genuine philosophers, sothat they should speak among themselves as follows: 'A by-path, as itwere, seems to lead us on in our researches undertaken by reason,'because as long as we are encumbered with the body, and our soul iscontaminated with such an evil, we can never fully attain to what wedesire; and this, we say, is truth. For the body subjects us toinnumerable hinderances on account of its necessary support, andmoreover if any diseases befall us, they impede us in our search afterthat which is; and it fills us with longings, desires, fears, all kindsof fancies, and a multitude of absurdities, so that, as it is said inreal truth, by reason of the body it is never possible for us to makeany advances in wisdom.

"For nothing else but the body and its desires occasions wars,seditions, and contests; for all wars among us arise on account of ourdesire to acquire wealth; and we are compelled to acquire wealth onaccount of the body, being enslaved to its service; and consequently onall these accounts we are hindered in the pursuit of philosophy. But theworst of all is, that if it leaves us any leisure, and we applyourselves to the consideration of any subject, it constantly obtrudesitself in the midst of our researches, and occasions trouble anddisturbance, and confounds us so that we are not able by reason of it todiscern the truth. It has then in reality been demonstrated to us, thatif we are ever to know anything purely, we must be separated from thebody, and contemplate the things themselves by the mere soul. And then,as it seems, we shall obtain that which we desire, and which we professourselves to be lovers of, wisdom, when we are dead, as reason shows,but not while we are alive. For if it is not possible to know anythingpurely in conjunction with the body, one of these two things mustfollow, either that we can never acquire knowledge, or only after we aredead; for then the soul will subsist apart by itself, separate from thebody, but not before. And while we live, we shall thus, as it seems,approach nearest to knowledge, if we hold no intercourse or communion atall with the body, except what absolute necessity requires, nor sufferourselves to be polluted by its nature, but purify ourselves from it,until God himself shall release us. And thus being pure, and freed fromthe folly of body, we shall in all likelihood be with others likeourselves, and shall of ourselves know the whole real essence, and thatprobably is truth; for it is not allowable for the impure to attain tothe pure. Such things, I think, Simmias, all true lovers of wisdom mustboth think and say to one another. Does it not seem so to you?"

"Most assuredly, Socrates."

"If this, then," said Socrates, "is true, my friend, there is great hopefor one who arrives where I am going, there, if anywhere, to acquirethat perfection for the sake of which we have taken so much pains duringour past life; so that the journey now appointed me is set out upon withgood hope, and will be so by any other man who thinks that his mind hasbeen as it were purified.

"This earth and the whole region here are decayed and corroded, asthings in the sea by the saltness; for nothing of any value grows in thesea, nor, in a word, does it contain anything perfect, but there arecaverns, and sand, and mud in abundance, and filth in whatever parts ofthe sea there is earth, nor are they at all worthy to be compared withthe beautiful things with us. But, on the other hand, those things inthe upper regions of the earth would appear far more to excel the thingswith us. For, if we may tell a beautiful fable, it is well worthhearing, Simmias, what kind the things are on the earth beneath theheavens."

"Indeed, Socrates," said Simmias, "we should be very glad to hear thatfable."

"First of all, then, my friend," he continued, "this earth, if anyoneshould survey it from above, is said to have the appearance of ballscovered with twelve different pieces of leather, variegated anddistinguished with colors, of which the colors found here, and whichpainters use, are as it were copies. But there the whole earth iscomposed of such, and far more brilliant and pure than these; for onepart of it is purple, and of wonderful beauty, part of a golden color,and part of white, more white than chalk or snow, and in like mannercomposed of other colors, and those more in number and more beautifulthan any we have ever beheld. And those very hollow parts of the earth,though filled with water and air, exhibit a certain species of color,shining among the variety of other colors, so that one continuallyvariegated aspect presents itself to the view. In this earth, beingsuch, all things that grow grow in a manner proportioned to itsnature--trees, flowers, and fruits; and again, in like manner, itsmountains and stones possess, in the same proportion, smoothness andtransparency and more beautiful colors; of which the well-known stoneshere that are so highly prized are but fragments, such as sardin-stones,jaspers, and emeralds, and all of that kind. But there, there is nothingsubsists that is not of this character, and even more beautiful thanthese.

"But the reason of this is, because the stones there are pure, and noteaten up and decayed, like those here, by rottenness and saltness, whichflow down hither together, and which produce deformity and disease inthe stones and the earth, and in other things, even animals and plants.But that earth is adorned with all these, and moreover with gold andsilver, and other things of the kind: for they are naturallyconspicuous, being numerous and large, and in all parts of the earth; sothat to behold it is a sight for the blessed. There are also many otheranimals and men upon it, some dwelling in mid-earth, others about theair, as we do about the sea, and others in islands which the air flowsround, and which are near the continent: and in one word, what water andthe sea are to us for our necessities, the air is to them; and what airis to us, that ether is to them.

"But their seasons are of such a temperament that they are free fromdisease, and live for a much longer time than those here, and surpass usin sight, hearing, and smelling, and everything of this kind, as much asair excels water, and ether air, in purity. Moreover, they have abodesand temples of the gods, in which gods really dwell, and voices andoracles, and sensible visions of the gods, and such-like intercoursewith them; the sun, too, and moon, and stars, are seen by them such asthey really are, and their felicity in other respects is correspondentwith these things.

"And such, indeed, is the nature of the whole earth and the parts aboutthe earth; but there are many places all round it throughout itscavities, some deeper and more open than that in which we dwell: butothers that are deeper have less chasm than in our region, and other areshallower in depth than they are here, and broader.

"But all these are in many places perforated one into another under theearth, some with narrower and some with wider channels, and havepassages through, by which a great quantity of water flows from one intoanother, as into basins, and there are immense bulks of ever-flowingrivers under the earth, both of hot and cold water, and a great quantityof fire, and mighty rivers of fire, and many of liquid mire, some purerand some more miry, as in Sicily there are rivers of mud that flowbefore the lava, and the lava itself, and from these the several placesare filled, according as the overflow from time to time happens to cometo each of them. But all these move up and down as it were by a certainoscillation existing in the earth. And this oscillation proceeds fromsuch natural cause as this: one of the chasms of the earth isexceedingly large, and perforated through the entire earth, and is thatwhich Homer[43] speaks of, 'very far off, where is the most profoundabyss beneath the earth,' which elsewhere both he and many other poetshave called Tartarus. For into this chasm all rivers flow together, andfrom it flow out again, but they severally derive their character fromthe earth through which they flow."

[Footnote 43: _Iliad_, lib. viii., v. 14.]

"And the reason why all streams flow out from thence and flow into it isbecause this liquid has neither bottom nor base. Therefore it oscillatesand fluctuates up and down, and the air and the wind around it do thesame; for they accompany it, both when it rushes to those parts of theearth, and when to these. And as in respiration the flowing breath iscontinually breathed out and drawn in, so there the wind, oscillatingwith the liquid, causes certain vehement and irresistible winds both asit enters and goes out. When, therefore, the water rushing in descendsto the place which we call the lower region, it flows through the earthinto the streams there and fills them, just as men pump up water. Butwhen again it leaves those regions and rushes hither, it again fills therivers here, and these, when filled, flow through channels and throughthe earth, and having severally reached the several places to which theyare journeying, they make seas, lakes, rivers, and fountains.

"Then sinking again from thence beneath the earth, some of them havinggone round longer and more numerous places, and others round fewer andshorter, they again discharge themselves into Tartarus, some much lowerthan they were drawn up, others only a little so, but all of them flowin again beneath the point at which they flowed out. And some issue outdirectly opposite the place by which they flow in, others on the sameside: there are also some which having gone round altogether in acircle, folding themselves once or several times round the earth, likeserpents, when they had descended as low as possible, dischargethemselves again; and it is possible for them to descend on either sideas far as the middle, but not beyond; for in each direction there is anacclivity to the streams both ways.

"Now there are many other large and various streams, and among thisgreat number there are four certain streams, of which the largest, andthat which flows most outwardly round the earth, is called Ocean, butdirectly opposite this, and flowing in a contrary direction, is Acheron,which flows through other desert places, and moreover passing under theearth, reaches the Acherusian lake, where the souls of most who diearrive, and having remained there for certain destined periods, somelonger and some shorter, are again sent forth into the generations ofanimals. A third river issues midway between these, and near its sourcefalls into a vast region, burning with abundance of fire, and forms alake larger than our sea, boiling with water and mud; from hence itproceeds in a circle, turbulent and muddy, and folding itself round itreaches both other places and the extremity of the Acherusian lake, butdoes not mingle with its water; but folding itself oftentimes beneaththe earth, it discharges itself into the lower parts of Tartarus. Andthis is the river which they call Pyriphlegethon, whose burning streamsemit dissevered fragments in whatever part of the earth they happen tobe. Opposite to this again the fourth river first falls into a placedreadful and savage, as it is said, having its whole color like_cyanus_: this they call Stygian, and the lake which the river forms byits discharge, Styx. This river having fallen in here, and receivedawful power in the water, sinking beneath the earth, proceeds, foldingitself round, in an opposite course to Pyriphlegethon, and meets it inthe Acherusian lake from a contrary direction. Neither does the water ofthis river mingle with any other, but it, too, having gone round in acircle, discharges itself into Tartarus opposite to Pyriphlegethon. Itsname, as the poets say, is Cocytus.

"These things being thus constituted, when the dead arrive at the placeto which their demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged,as well those who have lived well and piously as those who have not. Andthose who appear to have passed a middle kind of life, proceeding toAcheron, and embarking in the vessels they have, on these arrive at thelake, and there dwell, and when they are purified, and have sufferedpunishment for the iniquities they may have committed, they are setfree, and each receives the reward of his good deeds, according to hisdeserts: but those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude oftheir offences, either from having committed many and great sacrileges,or many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these asuitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth.

"But those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great offences,such as those who through anger have committed any violence againstfather or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life in a stateof penitence, or they who have become homicides in a similar manner,these must of necessity fall into Tartarus, but after they have fallen,and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicidesinto Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphlegethon: butwhen, being borne along, they arrive at the Acherusian lake, there theycry out to and invoke, some those whom they slew, others those whom theyinjured, and invoking them they entreat and implore them to suffer themto go out into the lake, and to receive them, and if they persuade themthey go out and are freed from their sufferings; but if not, they areborne back to Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers, and they do notcease from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they haveinjured, for this sentence was imposed on them by the judges.

"But those who are found to have lived an eminently holy life, these arethey who, being freed and set at large from these regions in the earth,as from a prison, arrive at the pure abode above, and dwell on the upperparts of the earth. And among these, they who have sufficiently purifiedthemselves by philosophy shall live without bodies, throughout allfuture time, and shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful thanthese, which it is neither easy to describe nor at present is theresufficient time for the purpose.

"But for the sake of these things which we have described, we should useevery endeavor, Simmias, so as to acquire virtue and wisdom in thislife; for the reward is noble, and the hope great.

"To affirm positively, indeed, that these things are exactly as I havedescribed them does not become a man of sense; that however either thisor something of the kind takes place with respect to our souls and theirhabitations--since our soul is certainly immortal--this appears to memost fitting to be believed, and worthy the hazard for one who trusts inits reality; for the hazard is noble, and it is right to allureourselves with such things, as with enchantments; for which reason Ihave prolonged my story to such a length.

"On account of these things, then, a man ought to be confident about hissoul who during this life has disregarded all the pleasures andornaments of the body as foreign from his nature, and who, havingthought that they do more harm than good, has zealously applied himselfto the acquirement of knowledge, and who having adorned his soul notwith a foreign but its own proper ornament--temperance, justice,fortitude, freedom, and truth--thus waits for his passage to Hades, asone who is ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him. You,then," he continued, "Simmias and Cebes, and the rest, will each of youdepart at some future time; but now 'destiny summons me,' as a tragicwriter would say, and it is nearly time for me to betake myself to thebath; for it appears to me to be better to drink the poison after I havebathed myself, and not to trouble the women with washing my dead body."

When he had thus spoken, Crito said: "So be it, Socrates, but whatcommands have you to give to these or to me, either respecting yourchildren or any other matter, in attending to which we can most obligeyou?"

"What I always say, Crito," he replied, "nothing new; that by takingcare of yourselves you will oblige both me and mine and yourselves,whatever you do, though you should not now promise it; but if youneglect yourselves, and will not live as it were in the footsteps ofwhat has been now and formerly said, even though you should promise muchat present, and that earnestly, you will do no good at all."

"We will endeavor then so to do," he said; "but how shall we bury you?"

"Just as you please," he said, "if only you can catch me, and I do notescape from you." And at the same time smiling gently, and looking roundon us, he said: "I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, that I am thatSocrates who is now conversing with you, and who methodizes each part ofthe discourse; but he thinks that I am he whom he will shortly beholddead, and asks how he should bury me. But that which I some time sinceargued at length, that when I have drunk the poison I shall no longerremain with you, but shall depart to some happy state of the blessed,this I seem to have urged to him in vain, though I meant at the sametime to console both you and myself. Be ye then my sureties to Crito,"he said, "in an obligation contrary to that which he made to the judges;for he undertook that I should remain; but do you be sureties that, whenI die, I shall not remain, but shall depart, that Crito may more easilybear it, and when he sees my body either burnt or buried, may not beafflicted for me, as if I suffered some dreadful thing, nor say at myinterment that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is buried.

"For be well assured," he said, "most excellent Crito, that to speakimproperly is not only culpable as to the thing itself, but likewiseoccasions some injury to our souls. You must have a good courage, then,and say that you bury my body, and bury it in such a manner as ispleasing to you, and as you think is most agreeable to our laws."

When he had said thus he rose and went into a chamber to bathe, andCrito followed him, but he directed us to wait for him. We waited,therefore, conversing among ourselves about what had been said, andconsidering it again, and sometimes speaking about our calamity, howsevere it would be to us, sincerely thinking that, like those who aredeprived of a father, we should pass the rest of our life as orphans.When he had bathed, and his children were brought to him, for he had twolittle sons, and one grown up; and the women belonging to his familywere come, having conversed with them in the presence of Crito and giventhem such injunctions as he wished, he directed the women and childrento go away, and then returned to us. And it was now near sunset; for hespent a considerable time within.

But when he came from bathing he sat down, and did not speak muchafterward; then the officer of the Eleven came in, and standing nearhim, said: "Socrates, I shall not have to find that fault with you thatI do with others, that they are angry with me and curse me, when, byorder of the archons, I bid them drink the poison. But you, on all otheroccasions during the time you have been here, I have found to be themost noble, meek, and excellent man of all that ever came into thisplace; and therefore I am now well convinced that you will not be angrywith me (for you know who are to blame) but with them. Now, then, foryou know what I came to announce to you, farewell; and endeavor to bearwhat is inevitable as easily as possible." And at the same time,bursting into tears, he turned away and withdrew.

And Socrates, looking after him, said: "And thou too, farewell; we willdo as you direct." At the same time turning to us, he said: "Howcourteous the man is; during the whole time I have been here he hasvisited me, and conversed with me sometimes, and proved the worthiest ofmen; and now how generously he weeps for me. But come, Crito, let usobey him, and let some one bring the poison, if it is ready pounded, butif not, let the man pound it."

Then Crito said: "But I think, Socrates, that the sun is still on themountains and has not yet set. Besides, I know that others have drunkthe poison very late, after it had been announced to them, and havesupped and drunk freely, and some even have enjoyed the objects of theirlove. Do not hasten, then, for there is yet time."

Upon this Socrates replied: "These men whom you mention, Crito, do thesethings with good reason, for they think they shall gain by so doing, andI too with good reason shall not do so; for I think I shall gain nothingby drinking a little later, except to become ridiculous to myself, inbeing so fond of life, and sparing of it when none any longer remains.Go, then," he said, "obey, and do not resist."

Crito having heard this, nodded to the boy that stood near. And the boyhaving gone out, and stayed for some time, came, bringing with him theman that was to administer the poison, who brought it ready pounded in acup. And Socrates, on seeing the man, said: "Well, my good friend, asyou are skilled in these matters, what must I do?"

"Nothing else," he replied, "than when you have drunk it walk aboutuntil there is a heaviness in your legs, then lie down; thus it will doits purpose." And at the same time he held out the cup to Socrates. Andhe having received it very cheerfully, Echecrates, neither trembling norchanging at all in color or countenance, but, as he was wont, lookingsteadfastly at the man, said: "What say you of this potion, with respectto making a libation to anyone, is it lawful or not?"

"We only pound so much, Socrates," he said, "as we think sufficient todrink."

"I understand you," he said; "but it is certainly both lawful and rightto pray to the gods, that my departure hence thither may be happy; whichtherefore I pray, and so may it be." And as he said this he drank it offreadily and calmly. Thus far, most of us were with difficulty able torestrain ourselves from weeping, but when we saw him drinking, andhaving finished the draught, we could do so no longer; but in spite ofmyself the tears came in full torrent, so that, covering my face, I weptfor myself, for I did not weep for him, but for my own fortune, in beingdeprived of such a friend. But Crito, even before me when he could notrestrain his tears, had risen up.

But Apollodorus, even before this, had not ceased weeping, and thenbursting into an agony of grief, weeping and lamenting, he pierced theheart of everyone present except Socrates himself. But he said: "Whatare you doing, my admirable friends? I indeed, for this reason chiefly,sent away the women that they might not commit any folly of this kind.For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet,therefore, and bear up."

When we heard this we were ashamed and restrained our tears. But he,having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, laiddown on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same time hewho gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short intervalexamined his feet and legs; and then having pressed his foot hard, heasked if he felt it.

He said that he did not.

And after this he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher, he showedus that he was growing cold and stiff.

Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the poison reached hisheart he should then depart.

But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when,uncovering himself (for he had been covered over), he said, and theywere his last words: "Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius; pay it,therefore, and do not neglect it!"

"It shall be done," said Crito; "but consider whether you have anythingelse to say?"

To this question he gave no reply; but shortly after he gave aconvulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed;and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.

This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a man, as we may say, thebest of all of his time that we have known, and, moreover, the most wiseand just.

BRENNUS BURNS ROME

B.C. 388

BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR

(Julius Caesar is the first writer who gives us an authentic andenlightening account of the Gauls, whom he divided into three groups.The Gauls were the chief branch of the great original stock of Celts.They were a nomadic people, and from their home in Western Europe theyspread to Britain, invaded Spain, and swarmed over the Alps into Italy,and it is from the latter event that this tall, fair, and fightingnation first came into the region of history.

Before the Gauls had come within the borders of Italy, Camillus, theDictator, had dealt the death-blow to the Etruscan League through hiscapture and destruction of its stronghold, Veii. But at the very summitof his triumph he lost the grace of his countrymen by demanding a tenthof their spoil taken at Veii, and which he claimed to have vowed toApollo. It was popularly considered a ruse to increase his privatefortune. Furthermore, a counter-claim was brought against him forappropriating bronze gates, which in Rome at that time were nothing lessthan actual money--bronze being the medium of currency. Camillus wentinto exile in consequence of the accusation. His parting prayer was thathis country might feel his need and call him back. His desire wasfulfilled, for soon after "the Gaul was at the gates" under theleadership of the haughty Brennus, who had come upon the Romans at amost opportune moment. This event of the overthrow of the Romans on theAlia has been the occasion for the well-known tale of the cackling ofthe geese in the temple of Juno, which alarmed the garrison. The episodealso gave rise to the saying of the conqueror, Brennus, who, whenreproached by his antagonists with using false weights, cast his swordinto the scale, crying, "Woe to the conquered!")

At that time no Roman foresaw the calamity which was threatening theempire. Rome had become great, because the country which she hadconquered was weak through its oligarchical institutions; the subjectsof the other states gladly joined the Romans, because under them theirlot was more favorable, and probably because they were kindred nations.But matters went with the Romans as they did with Basilius, who subduedthe Armenians when they were threatened by the Turks, and who soon afterattacked the whole Greek empire and took away far more than had beengained before.

The expedition of the Gauls into Italy must be regarded as a migration,and not as an invasion for the purpose of conquest: as for thehistorical account of it, we must adhere to Polybius and Diodorus, whoplace it shortly before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. We can attachno importance to the statement of Livy that they had come into Italy asearly as the time of Tarquinius Priscus, having been driven from theircountry by a famine. It undoubtedly arose from the fact that some Greekwriter, perhaps Timaeus, connected this migration with the settlement ofthe Phocians at Massilia. It is possible that Livy even here made use ofDionysius; and that the latter followed Timaeus; for as Livy made use ofDionysius in the eighth book, why not also in the fifth? He himself knewvery little of Greek history;[44] but Justin's account is here evidentlyopposed to Livy.

[Footnote 44: Comp. _Hist. of Rome_, vol. iii. n. 485.]

Trogus Pompeius was born in the neighborhood of Massilia, and in writinghis forty-third book he obviously made use of native chronicles, forfrom no other source could he derive the account of the _decretahonorifica_ of the Romans to the Massilians for the friendship which thelatter had shown to the Romans during the Gallic war; and from the samesource must he have obtained his information about the maritime wars ofMassilia against Carthage. Trogus knows nothing of the story that theGauls assisted the Phocians on their arrival; but according to him, theymet with a kind reception among the Ligurians, who continued to inhabitthose parts for a long time after. Even the story of the _lucumo_ who issaid to have invited the Gauls is opposed to him, and if it werereferred to Clusium alone it would be absurd. Polybius places thepassage of the Gauls across the Alps about ten or twenty years beforethe taking of Rome; and Diodorus describes them as advancing toward Romeby an uninterrupted march. It is further stated that Melpum in thecountry of the Insubrians was destroyed on the same day as Veii: withoutadmitting this coincidence, we have no reason to doubt that thestatement is substantially true; and it is made by Cornelius Nepos, who,as a native of Gallia Transpadana, might possess accurate information,and whose chronological accounts were highly esteemed by the Romans.

There was no other passage for the Gauls except either across the LittleSt. Bernard or across the Simplon; it is not probable that they took theformer road, because their country extended only as far as the Ticinus,and if they had come across the Little St. Bernard, they would naturallyhave occupied also all the country between that mountain and theTicinus. The Salassi may indeed have been a Gallic people, but it is byno means certain; moreover, between them and the Gauls who had comeacross the Alps the Laevi also lived; and there can be no doubt that atthat time Ligurians still continued to dwell on the Ticinus.

Melpum must have been situated in the district of Milan. The latterplace has an uncommonly happy situation: often as it has been destroyed,it has always been restored, so that it is not impossible that Melpummay have been situated on the very spot afterward occupied by Milan. TheGallic migration undoubtedly passed by like a torrent with irresistiblerapidity: how then is it possible to suppose that Melpum resisted themfor two centuries, or that they conquered it and yet did not disturb theEtruscans for two hundred years? It would be absurd to believe it,merely to save an uncritical expression of Livy. According to the commonchronology, the Triballi, who in the time of Herodotus inhabited theplains, and were afterward expelled by the Gauls, appeared in Thracetwelve years after the taking of Rome--according to a more correctchronology it was only nine years after that event. It was the samemovement assuredly which led the Gauls to the countries through whichthe middle course of the Danube extends, and to the Po; and could thepeople who came in a few days from Clusium to Rome, and afterwardappeared in Apulia, have been sitting quiet in a corner of Italy for twohundred years? If they had remained there because they had not the powerto advance, they would have been cut to pieces by the Etruscans. We musttherefore look upon it as an established fact, that the migration tookplace at the late period mentioned by Polybius and Diodorus.

These Gauls were partly Celts, and partly (indeed principally) Belgae orCymri, as may be perceived from the circumstance that their king, aswell as the one who appeared before Delphi, is called Brennus. _Brenin_,according to Adelung, in his _Mithridates_, signifies in the language ofWales and Lower Brittany a _king_. But what caused this wholeemigration? The statement of Livy, that the Gauls were compelled byfamine to leave their country, is quite in keeping with the nature ofall traditions about migrations, such as we find them in SaxoGrammaticus, in Paul Warnefried from the sagas of the Swedes, in theTyrrhenian traditions of Lydia, and others. However, in the case of apeople like the Celts, every specific statement of this kind, in whicheven the names of their leaders are mentioned, is of no more value thanthe traditions of other barbarous nations which were unacquainted withthe art of writing. It is indeed, well known that the Celts in writingused the Greek alphabet, but they probably employed it only in thetransactions of daily life; for we know that they were not allowed tocommit their ancient songs to writing.

During the Gallic migration we are again made aware how little we knowof the history of Italy generally: our knowledge is limited to Rome, sothat we are in the same predicament there, as if of all the historicalauthorities of the whole German empire we had nothing but the annals ofa single imperial city. According to Livy's account, it would seem as ifthe only object of the Gauls had been to march to Rome; and yet thisimmigration changed the whole aspect of Italy. After the Gauls had oncecrossed the Apennines, there was no further obstacle to prevent theirmarching to the south of Italy by any road they pleased; and it is infact mentioned that they did proceed farther south. The Umbrians stillinhabited the country on the lower Po, in the modern Romagna and Urbino,parts of which were occupied by Liburnians. Polybius says that manypeople there became tributary to the Gauls, and that this was the casewith the Umbrians is quite certain.

The first historical appearance of the Gauls is at Clusium, whither anoble Clusine is said to have invited them for the purpose of takingvengeance on his native city. Whether this account is true, however,must remain undecided, and if there is any truth in it, it is moreprobable that the offended Clusine went across the Apennines and fetchedhis avengers. Clusium has not been mentioned since the time of Porsena;the fact of the Clusines soliciting the aid of Rome is a proof howlittle that northern city of Etruria was concerned about the fate of thesouthern towns, and makes us even suspect that it was allied with Rome;however, the danger was so great that all jealousy must have beensuppressed. The natural road for the Gauls would have been along theAdriatic, then through the country of Umbrians who were tributary tothem and already quite broken down, and thence through the Romagnaacross the Apennines.

But the Apennines which separate Tuscany from the Romagna are verydifficult to cross, especially for sumpter-horses; as therefore theGauls could not enter Etruria on that side--which the Etruscans hadintentionally allowed to grow wild--and as they had been convinced ofthis in an unsuccessful attempt, they crossed the Apennines in theneighborhood of Clusium, and appeared before that city. Clusium was thegreat bulwark of the valley of the Tiber; and if it were taken, theroads along the Tiber and the Arno would be open, and the Gauls mightreach Arezzo from the rear: the Romans therefore looked upon the fate ofClusium as decisive of their own. The Clusines sued for a treaty withthe mighty city of Rome, and the Romans were wise enough readily toaccept the offer: they sent ambassadors to the Gauls, ordering them towithdraw. According to a very probable account, the Gauls had demandedof the Clusines a division of their territory as the condition of peace,and not, as was customary with the Romans, as a tax upon a peoplealready subdued: if this is correct, the Romans sent the embassyconfiding in their own strength. But the Gauls scorned the ambassadors,and the latter, allowing themselves to be carried away by their warlikedisposition, joined the Etruscans in a fight against the Gauls. This wasprobably only an insignificant and isolated engagement. Such is theaccount of Livy, who goes on to say that the Gauls, as soon as theyperceived this violation in the law of nations, gave the signal for aretreat, and, having called upon the gods to avenge the wrong, marchedagainst Rome.

This is evidently a mere fiction, for a barbarous nation like the Gaulscannot possibly have had such ideas, nor was there in reality anyviolation of the law of nations, as the Romans stood in no kind ofconnection with the Gauls. But it was a natural feeling with the Romansto look upon the fall of their city as the consequence of a _nefas_which no human power could resist. Roman vanity also is at work here,inasmuch as the Roman ambassadors are said to have so distinguishedthemselves that they were recognized by the barbarians among the hostsof Etruscans. Now, according to another tradition directly opposed tothese statements, the Gauls sent to Rome to demand the surrender ofthose ambassadors: as the senate was hesitating and left the decision tothe people, the latter not only rejected the demand, but appointed thesame ambassadors to the office of military tribunes, whereupon the Gaulswith all their forces at once marched toward Rome.

Livy here again speaks of the _populus_ as the people to whom the senateleft the decision: this must have been the patricians only, for theyalone had the right to decide upon the fate of the members of their ownorder. It is not fair to accuse the Romans on that occasion ofdishonesty; but this account assuredly originated with later writers,who transferred to barbarians the right belonging to a nation standingin a legal relation to another. The statement that the threeambassadors, all of whom were Fabii, were appointed military tribunes,is not even the usual one, for there is another in Diodorus, who musthere have used Roman authorities written in Greek, that is, Fabius;since he calls the Caerites [Greek: Kairioi] and not [Greek: Agullaioi].He speaks of a single ambassador, who being a son of a military tribunefought against the Gauls. This is at least a sign how uncertain historyyet is. The battle on the Alia was fought on the 16th of July; themilitary tribunes entered upon their office on the first of that month;and the distance between Clusium and Rome is only three good days'marches. It is impossible to restore the true history, but we candiscern what is fabulous from what is really historical.

An innumerable host of Gauls now marched from Clusium toward Rome. For along time the Gauls were most formidable to the Romans, as well as toall other nations with whom they came in contact, even as far east asthe Ukraine; as to Rome, we see this as late as the Cisalpine war of theyear A.U. 527. Polybius and Diodorus are our best guides in seeking forinformation about the manners of the Gauls, for in the time of Caesarthey had already become changed. In the description of their persons wepartly recognize the modern Gael, or the inhabitants of the Highlands ofScotland: huge bodies, blue eyes, bristly hair; even their dress andarmor are those of the Highlanders, for they wore the checked andvariegated tartans; their arms consisted of the broad, unpointedbattle-sword, the same weapon as the claymore among the Highlanders.They had a vast number of horns, which were used in the Highlands formany centuries after, and threw themselves upon the enemy in immenseirregular masses with terrible fury, those standing behind impellingthose stationed in front, whereby they became irresistible by thetactics of those times.

The Romans ought to have used against them their phalanx and doubled it,until they were accustomed to this enemy and were enabled by theirgreater skill to repel them. If the Romans had been able to withstandtheir first shock, the Gauls would have easily been thrown intodisorder, and put to flight. The Gauls who were subsequently conqueredby the Romans were the descendants of such as were born in Italy, andhad lost much of their courage and strength. The Goths under Vitiges,not fifty years after the immigration of Theodoric into Italy, werecowards, and unable to resist the twenty thousand men of Belisarius:showing how easily barbarians degenerate in such climates.

The Gauls, moreover, were terrible on account of their inhuman cruelty,for, wherever they settled, the original towns and their inhabitantscompletely disappeared from the face of the earth. In their own countrythey had the feudal system and a priestly government: the Druids weretheir only rulers, who avenged the oppressed people on the lords, but intheir turn became tyrants: all the people were in the condition ofserfs, a proof that the Gauls, in their own country too, were theconquerors who had subdued an earlier population. We always find mentionof the wealth of the Gauls in gold, and yet France has no rivers thatcarry gold-sand, and the Pyrenees were then no longer in theirpossession: the gold must therefore have been obtained by barter. Muchmay be exaggeration; and the fact of some noble individuals wearing goldchains was probably transferred by ancient poets to the whole nation,since popular poetry takes great liberty, especially in suchembellishments.

Pliny states that previous to the Gallic calamity the census amounted toone hundred and fifty thousand persons, which probably refers only tomen entitled to vote in the assemblies, and does not comprise women,children, slaves, and strangers. If this be correct, the number ofcitizens was enormous; but it must not be supposed to include theinhabitants of the city only, the population of which was doubtless muchsmaller. The statement of Diodorus that all men were called to arms toresist the Gauls, and that the number amounted to forty thousand, is byno means improbable: according to the testimony of Polybius, Latins andHernicans also were enlisted. Another account makes the Romans take thefield against the Gauls with twenty-four thousand men, that is, withfour field legions and four civic legions: the field legions were formedonly of plebeians, and served, according to the order of the classes,probably in _maniples_; the civic legions contained all those whobelonged neither to the patricians nor to the plebeians, that is, allthe _aerarii, proletarii_, freedmen, and artisans who had never beforefaced an enemy. They were certainly not armed with the _pilum_, nordrawn up in _maniples_; but used pikes and were employed in phalanxes.

Now as for the field legions, each consisted half of Latins and half ofRomans, there being in each _maniple_ one century of Roman and one ofLatins. There were at that time four legions, and as a legion, includingthe reserve troops, contained three thousand men, the total is twelvethousand; now the account which mentions twenty-four thousand men musthave presumed that there were four field legions and four irregularcivic ones. There would accordingly have been no more than six thousandplebeians, and, even if the legions were all made up of Romans, onlytwelve thousand; if in addition to these we take twelve thousandirregular troops and sixteen thousand allies, the number of fortythousand would be completed. In this case, the population of Rome wouldnot have been as large as that of Athens in the Peloponnesian war, andthis is indeed very probable. The cavalry is not included in thiscalculation: but forty thousand must be taken as the maximum of thewhole army. There seems to be no exaggeration in this statement, and thebattle on the Alia, speaking generally, is an historical event.

It is surprising that the Romans did not appoint a dictator to commandin the battle; it cannot be said indeed that they regarded this war asan ordinary one, for in that case they would not have raised so great aforce, but they cannot have comprehended the danger in all itsgreatness. New swarms continued to come across the Alps; the Senonesalso now appeared to seek habitations for themselves; they, like theGermans in after-times, demanded land, as they found the Insubrians,Boians, and others already settled; the latter had taken up their abodein Umbria, but only until they should find a more extensive and suitableterritory.

The Romans committed the great mistake of fighting with their hurriedlycollected troops a battle against an enemy who had hitherto beeninvincible. The hills along which the right wing is said to have beendrawn up are no longer discernible, and they were probably nothing butlittle mounds of earth: at any rate it was senseless to draw up a longline against the immense mass of enemies. The Gauls, on the other hand,were enabled without any difficulty to turn off to the left. Theyproceeded to a higher part of the river, where it was more easilyfordable, and with great prudence threw themselves with all their forceupon the right wing, consisting of the civic legions. The latter atfirst resisted, but not long; and when they fled, the whole remainingline, which until then seems to have been useless and inactive, wasseized with a panic.

Terror preceded the Gauls as they laid waste everything on their way,and this paralyzed the courage of the Romans, instead of rousing them toa desperate resistance. The Romans therefore were defeated on the Aliain the most inglorious manner. The Gauls had taken them in their rear,and cut off their return to Rome. A portion fled toward the Tiber, wheresome effected a retreat across the river, and others were drowned;another part escaped into a forest. The loss of life must have beenprodigious, and it is inconceivable how Livy could have attached so muchimportance to the mere disgrace. If the Roman army had not been almostannihilated, it would not have been necessary to give up the defence ofthe city, as was done, for the city was left undefended and deserted byall. Many fled to Veii instead of returning to Rome: only a few, who hadescaped along the high road, entered the city by the Colline gate.

Rome was exhausted, her power shattered, her legions defenceless, andher warlike allies had partly been beaten in the same battle, and werepartly awaiting the fearful enemy in their own countries. At Rome it wasbelieved that the whole army was destroyed, for nothing was known ofthose who had reached Veii. In the city itself there were only old men,women, and children, so that there was no possibility of defending it.It is, however, inconceivable that the gates should have been left open,and that the Gauls, from fear of a stratagem, should have encamped forseveral days outside the gates. A more probable account is that thegates were shut and barricaded. We may form a vivid conception of thecondition of Rome after this battle, by comparing it with that of Moscowbefore the conflagration: the people were convinced that a long defencewas impossible, since there was probably a want of provisions.

Livy gives a false notion of the evacuation of the city, as if thedefenceless citizens had remained immovable in their consternation, andonly a few had been received into the Capitol. The determination, infact, was to defend the Capitol, and the tribune Sulpicius had takenrefuge there, with about one thousand men. There was on the Capitol anancient well which still exists, and without which the garrison wouldsoon have perished. This well remained unknown to all antiquaries, tillI discovered it by means of information gathered from the people wholive there. Its depth in the rock descends to the level of the Tiber,but the water is now not fit to drink. The Capitol was a rock which hadbeen hewn steep, and thereby made inaccessible, but a _clivus_, closedby gates both below and above, led up from the Forum and the Sacred Way.The rock, indeed, was not so steep as in later times, as is clear fromthe account of the attempt to storm it; but the Capitol was neverthelessvery strong. Whether some few remained in the city, as at Moscow, who intheir stupefaction did not consider what kind of enemy they had beforethem, cannot be decided. The narrative is very beautiful, and reminds usof the taking of the Acropolis of Athens by the Persians, where,likewise, the old men allowed themselves to be cut down by the Persians.

Notwithstanding the improbability of the matter, I am inclined tobelieve that a number of aged patricians--their number may not beexactly historical--sat down in the Forum, in their official robes, ontheir curule chairs, and that the chief pontiff devoted them to death.Such devotions are a well-known Roman custom. It is certainly notimprobable that the Gauls were amazed when they found the city deserted,and only these old men sitting immovable, that they took them forstatues or supernatural visions, and did nothing to them, until one ofthem struck a Gaul who touched him, whereupon all were slaughtered. Tocommit suicide was repugnant to the customs of the Romans, who wereguided in many things by feelings more correct and more resembling ourown, than many other ancient nations. The old men, indeed, had given upthe hope of their country being saved; but the Capitol might bemaintained, and the survivors preferred dying in the attempt ofself-defence to taking refuge at Veii, where after all they could nothave maintained themselves in the end.

The sacred treasures were removed to Caere, and the hope of the Romansnow was that the barbarians would be tired of the long siege. Provisionsfor a time had been conveyed to the Capitol, where a couple of thousandmen may have been assembled, and where all buildings, temples, as wellas public and private houses, were used as habitations. The Gauls madefearful havoc at Rome, even more fearful than the Spaniards and Germansdid in the year 1527. Soldiers plunder, and when they find no humanbeings they engage in the work of destruction; and fires break out, asat Moscow, without the existence of any intention to cause aconflagration. The whole city was changed into a heap of ashes, with theexception of a few houses on the Palatine, which were occupied by theleaders of the Gauls. It is astonishing to find, nevertheless, that afew monuments of the preceding period, such as statues, situated at somedistance from the Capitol, are mentioned as having been preserved; butwe must remember that _travertino_ is tolerably fireproof. That Rome wasburned down is certain; and when it was rebuilt, not even the ancientstreets were restored.

The Gauls were now encamped in the city. At first they attempted tostorm the _clivus_, but were repelled with great loss, which issurprising, since we know that at an earlier time the Romans succeededin storming it against Appius Herdonius. Afterward they discovered thefootsteps of a messenger who had been sent from Veii, in order that theState might be taken care of in due form; for the Romans in the Capitolwere patricians, and represented the _curies_ and the Government,whereas those assembled at Veii represented the tribes, but had noleaders. The latter had resolved to recall Camillus, and raise him tothe dictatorship. For this reason Pontius Cominius had been sent to Rometo obtain the sanction of the senate and the curies. This was quite inthe spirit of the ancient times. If the curies had interdicted him _aquaet igni_, they alone could recall him, if they previously obtained aresolution of the senate authorizing them to do so; but if he had goneinto voluntary exile, and had given up his Roman franchise by becoming acitizen of Ardea before a sentence had been passed upon him by thecenturies, it was again in the power of the curies alone, he being apatrician, to recall him as a citizen; and otherwise he could not havebecome dictator, nor could he have regarded himself as such.

It was the time of the dog-days when the Gauls came to Rome, and as thesummer at Rome is always pestilential, especially during the two monthsand a half before the first of September, the unavoidable consequencemust have been, as Livy relates, that the barbarians, bivouacking on theruins of the city in the open air, were attacked by disease and carriedoff, like the army of Frederick Barbarossa when encamped before thecastle of St. Angelo. The whole army of the Gauls, however, was not inthe city, but only as many as were necessary to blockade the garrison ofthe Capitol; the rest were scattered far and wide over the face of thecountry, and were ravaging all the unprotected places and isolated farmsin Latium; many an ancient town, which is no longer mentioned after thistime, may have been destroyed by the Gauls. None but fortified placeslike Ostia, which could obtain supplies by sea, made a successfulresistance, for the Gauls were unacquainted with the art of besieging.

The Ardeatans, whose territory was likewise invaded by the Gauls,opposed them, under the command of Camillus; the Etruscans would seem tohave endeavored to avail themselves of the opportunity of recoveringVeii, for we are told that the Romans at Veii, commanded by Caedicius,gained a battle against them, and that, encouraged by this success, theybegan to entertain a hope of regaining Rome, since by this victory theygot possession of arms.

A Roman of the name of Fabius Dorso is said to have offered up, in broaddaylight, a _gentilician_ sacrifice on the Quirinal; and the astonishedGauls are said to have done him no harm--a tradition which is notimprobable.

The provisions in the Capitol were exhausted, but the Gauls themselvesbeing seized with epidemic diseases became tired of their conquests, andwere not inclined to settle in a country so far away from their ownhome. They once more attempted to take the Capitol by storm, havingobserved that the messenger from Veii had ascended the rock, and comedown again near the Porta Carmentalis, below Araceli. The ancient rockis now covered with rubbish, and no longer discernible. The besieged didnot think of a storm on that side; it may be that formerly there had inthat part been a wall, which had become decayed; and in southerncountries an abundant vegetation always springs up between the stones,and if this had actually been neglected it cannot have been verydifficult to climb up. The Gauls had already gained a firm footing, asthere was no wall at the top--the rock which they stormed was not theTarpeian, but the Arx--when Manlius, who lived there, was roused by thescreaming of the geese: he came to the spot and thrust down those whowere climbing up.

This rendered the Gauls still more inclined to commence negotiations;they were, moreover, called back by an inroad of some Alpine tribes intoLombardy, where they had left their wives and children: they offered todepart if the Romans would pay them a ransom of a thousand pounds ofgold, to be taken no doubt from the Capitoline treasury. Considering thevalue of money at that time, the sum was enormous: in the time ofTheodosius, indeed, there were people at Rome who possessed severalhundredweight of gold, nay, one is said to have had an annual revenue oftwo hundredweight. There can be no doubt that the Gauls received the sumthey demanded, and quitted Rome; that in weighing it they scornfullyimposed upon the Romans is very possible, and the _vae victis_ too maybe true: we ourselves have seen similar things before the year 1813.

But there can be no truth in the story told by Livy, that while theywere disputing Camillus appeared with an army and stopped theproceedings, because the military tribunes had had no right to concludethe treaty. He is there said to have driven the Gauls from the city, andafterward in a twofold battle to have so completely defeated them thatnot even a messenger escaped. Beaufort, inspired by Gallic patriotism,has most excellently shown what a complete fable this story is. Toattempt to disguise the misfortunes of our forefathers by substitutingfables in their place is mere childishness. This charge does not affectLivy, indeed, for he copied only what others had written before him; buthe did not allow his own conviction to appear as he generally does, forhe treats the whole of the early history with a sort of irony, halfbelieving, half disbelieving it.

According to another account in Diodorus, the Gauls besieged a townallied with Rome--its name seems to be mis-written, but is probablyintended for Vulsinii--and the Romans relieved it and took back from theGauls the gold which they had paid them; but this siege of Vulsinii isquite unknown to Livy. A third account in Strabo and also mentioned byDiodorus does not allow this honor to the Romans, but states that theCaerites pursued the Gauls, attacked them in the country of the Sabines,and completely annihilated them. In like manner the Greeks endeavored todisguise the fact that the Gauls took the money from the Delphictreasury, and that in a quite historical period (Olymp. 120). The trueexplanation is undoubtedly the one found in Polybius, that the Gaulswere induced to quit Rome by an insurrection of the Alpine tribes, afterit had experienced the extremity of humiliation.

Whatever the enemy had taken as booty was consumed; they had not madeany conquests, but only indulged in plunder and devastation; they hadbeen staying at Rome for seven or eight months, and could have gainednothing further than the Capitol and the very money which they receivedwithout taking that fortress. The account of Polybius throws light uponmany discrepant statements, and all of them, not even excepting Livy'sfairy-tale-like embellishment, may be explained by means of it. TheRomans attempted to prove that the Gauls had actually been defeated, byrelating that the gold afterward taken from the Gauls and buried in theCapitol was double the sum paid to them as a ransom; but it is much moreprobable that the Romans paid their ransom out of the treasury of thetemple of the Capitoline Jupiter and of other temples, and thatafterward double this sum was made up by a tax; which agrees with astatement in the history of Manlius, that a tax was imposed for thepurpose of raising the Gallic ransom: surely this could not have beendone at the time of the siege, when the Romans were scattered in allparts of the country, but must have taken place afterward for thepurpose of restoring the money that had been taken. Now if at a latertime there actually existed in the Capitol such a quantity of gold, itis clear that it was believed to be a proof that the Gauls had not keptthe gold which was paid to them.

Even as late as the time of Cicero and Caesar, the spot was shown atRome in the Carinae, where the Gauls had heaped up and burned theirdead; it was called _busta Gallica_, which was corrupted in the MiddleAges into Protogallo, whence the church which was built there was inreality called _S. Andreas in bustis Gallicis_, or, according to thelater Latinity, _in busta Gallica--busta Gallica_ not being declined.

The Gauls departed with their gold, which the Romans had been compelledto pay on account of the famine that prevailed in the Capitol, which wasso great that they pulled the leather from their shields and cooked it,just as was done during the siege of Jerusalem. The Gauls were certainlynot destroyed. Justin has preserved the remarkable statement that thesame Gauls who sacked Rome went to Apulia, and there offered for moneytheir assistance to the elder Dionysius of Syracuse. From this importantstatement it is at any rate clear that they traversed all Italy, andthen probably returned along the shore of the Adriatic: theirdevastations extended over many parts of Italy, and there is no doubtthat the AEquians received their death-blow at that time, for henceforthwe hear no more of the hostilities of the AEquians against Rome.Praeneste, on the other hand, which must formerly have been subject tothe AEquians, now appears as an independent town. The AEquians, whoinhabited small and easily destructible towns, must have beenannihilated during the progress of the Gauls.

There is nothing so strange in the history of Livy as his view of theconsequences of the Gallic calamity; he must have conceived it as atransitory storm by which Rome was humbled but not broken. The army,according to him, was only scattered, and the Romans appear afterwardjust as they had been before, as if the preceding period had only beenan evil dream, and as if there had been nothing to do but to rebuild thecity. But assuredly the devastation must have been tremendous throughoutthe Roman territory: for eight months the barbarians had been ravagingthe country, every trace of cultivation, every farmer's house, all thetemples and public buildings were destroyed; the walls of the city hadbeen purposely pulled down, a large number of its inhabitants were ledinto slavery, the rest were living in great misery at Veii; and whatthey had saved scarcely sufficed to buy their bread. In this conditionthey returned to Rome. Camillus as dictator is called a second Romulus,and to him is due the glory of not having despaired in those distressingcircumstances.

TARTAR INVASION OF CHINA BY MEHA

B.C. 341

DEMETRIUS CHARLES BOULGER

(The first Chinese are supposed to have been a nomad tribe in theprovinces of Shensi, which lies in the northwest of China, and amongthem at last appeared a ruler, Fohi, whose name at least has beenpreserved. His deeds and his person are mythical, but he is creditedwith having given his country its first regular institutions.

The annalists of the Chinese chronicles placed the date of the Creationat a point of time two millions of years before Confucius; this intervalthey filled up with lines of dynasties. Preceding the Chow dynasty thechronicles give ten epochs--prior to the eighth of these there is noauthentic history. Yew-chow She [the "Nest-having"] taught the people tobuild huts of the boughs of trees. Fire was discovered by Say-jin She[the "Fire producer"]. Fuh-he [B.C. 2862] was the discoverer of iron.With Yaou [B.C. 2356] is the period whence Confucius begins his story.He says of that epoch: "The house door could safely be left open." Yaougreatly extended and strengthened the empire and established fairs andmarts over the land.

One of China's most notable rulers was Tsin Chi Hwangti, who wasstudious in providing for the security of his empire, and with thisobject began the construction of a fortified wall across the northernfrontier to serve as a defence against the troublesome Hiongnou tribes,who are identified with the Huns of Attila. This wall, which he began inthe first years of his reign--about the close of the third centuryB.C.--was finished before his death. It still exists, known as the GreatWall of China, and has long been considered one of the wonders of theworld. Every third man of the whole empire was employed on this work. Itis said that five hundred thousand of them died of starvation. Thecontents of the Great Wall would be enough to build two walls six feethigh and two feet thick around the equator. It is the largest artificialstructure in the world; carried for fourteen hundred miles over heightand hollow, reaching in one place the level of five thousandfeet--nearly one mile--above the sea. Earth, gravel, brick, and stonewere used in its construction.

The weak successors of Hwangti finally gave way to the usurper, Kaotsou,who had been originally the ruler of a small town, and had borne thename of Lieou Pang.

The reign of Kaotsou was distinguished by the consolidation of theempire; the connection of Western with Eastern China by high walls andbridges, some of which are still in perfect condition, and theinstitution of an elaborate code of court etiquette. His attention tothese things was, however, rudely interrupted by an irruption of theHiongnou Tartars.)

The death of Tsin Chi Hwangti proved the signal for the outbreak ofdisturbances throughout the realm. Within a few months five princes hadfounded as many kingdoms, each hoping, if not to become supreme, atleast to remain independent. Moungtien, beloved by the army, and at thehead, as he tells us in his own words, of three hundred thousandsoldiers, might have been the arbiter of the empire; but a weak feelingof respect for the imperial authority induced him to obey an order, sentby Eulchi, Hwangti's son and successor, commanding him "to drink thewaters of eternal life." Eulchi's brief reign of three years was asuccession of misfortunes. The reins of office were held by the eunuchChow-kow, who first murdered the minister Lissep and then Eulchihimself.

Ing Wang, a grandson of Hwangti, was the next and last of the Tsinemperors. On coming to power, he at once caused Chow-kow, whose crimeshad been discovered, to be arrested and executed. This vigorouscommencement proved very transitory, for when he had enjoyed nominalauthority during six weeks, Ing Wang's troops, after a reverse in thefield, went over in a body to Lieou Pang, the leader of a rebel force.Ing Wang put an end to his existence, thus terminating, in a manner notless ignominious than any of its predecessors, the dynasty of the Tsins,which Hwangti had hoped to place permanently on the throne of China, andto which his genius gave a lustre far surpassing that of many otherfamilies who had enjoyed the same privilege during a much longer period.

The crisis in the history of the country had afforded one of those greatmen who rise periodically from the ranks of the people to give law tonations the opportunity for advancing his personal interests at the sametime that he made them appear to be identical with the public weal. Ofsuch geniuses, if the test applied be the work accomplished, there havebeen few with higher claims to respectful and admiring considerationthan Lieou Pang, who after the fall of the Tsins became the founder ofthe Han dynasty under the style of Kaotsou. Originally the governor of asmall town, he had, soon after the death of Hwangti, gathered round himthe nucleus of a formidable army, and while nominally serving under oneof the greater princes, he scarcely affected to conceal that he wasfighting for his own interest. On the other hand, he was no mere soldierof fortune, and the moderation which he showed after victory enhancedhis reputation as a general. The path to the throne being thus cleared,the successful general became emperor.

His first act was to proclaim an amnesty to all those who had borne armsagainst him. In a public proclamation he expressed his regret at thesuffering of the people "from the evils which follow in the train ofwar." During the earlier years of his reign he chose the city of Loyangas his capital--now the flourishing and populous town of Honan--but at alater period he removed it to Singanfoo, in the western province ofShensi. His dynasty became known by the name of the small state where hewas born, and which had fallen early in his career into his hands.

Kaotsou sanctioned or personally undertook various important publicworks, which in many places still exist to testify to the greatness ofhis character. Prominent among those must be placed the bridgesconstructed along the great roads of Western China. Some of them arestill believed to be in perfect condition. No act of Kaotsou's reignplaces him higher in the scale of sovereigns than the improvement of theroads and the construction of those remarkable bridges. Kaotsou lovedsplendor and sought to make his receptions and banquets imposing bytheir brilliance. He drew up a special ceremonial which must have proveda trying ordeal for his courtiers, and dire was the offence if it wereinfringed in the smallest particular. He kept up festivities atSinganfoo for several weeks, and on one of these occasions he exclaimed:"To-day I feel I am emperor and perceive all the difference between asubject and his master."

Kaotsou's attention was rudely summoned away from these trivialities bythe outbreak of revolts against his authority and by inroads on the partof the Tartars. The latter were the more serious. The disturbances thatfollowed Hwangti's death were a fresh inducement to these clans to againgather round a common head and prey upon the weakness of China, forKaotsou's authority was not yet recognized in many of the tributarystates which had been fain to admit the supremacy of the great Tsinemperor. About this time the Hiongnou[45] Tartars were governed by twochiefs in particular, one named Tonghou, the other Meha or Mehe. Ofthese the former appears to have been instigated by a reckless ambitionor an overweening arrogance, and at first it seemed that the forbearanceof Meha would allow his pretensions[46] to pass unchallenged.

[Footnote 45: Probably the same race as the Huns.]

[Footnote 46: Meha had become chief of his clan by murdering his father,Teou-man, who was on the point of ordering his son's assassination whenthus forestalled in his intention. Tonghou sent to demand from him afavorite horse, which Meha sent him. His kinsmen advised him to refusecompliance; but he replied: "What! Would you quarrel with your neighborsfor a horse?" Shortly afterward Tonghou sent to ask for one of the wivesof the former chief. This also Meha granted, saying: "Why should weundertake a war for the sake of a woman?" It was only when Tonghoumenaced his possessions that Meha took up arms.]

Meha's successes followed rapidly upon each other. Issuing from thedesert, and marching in the direction of China, he wrested many fertiledistricts from the feeble hands of those who held them; and whileestablishing his personal authority on the banks of the Hoangho, hislieutenants returned laden with plunder from expeditions into the richprovinces of Shensi and Szchuen. He won back all the territory lost byhis ancestors to Hwangti and Moungtien, and he paved the way to greatersuccess by the siege and capture of the city of Maye, thus obtainingpossession of the key of the road to Tsinyang. Several of the borderchiefs and of the Emperor's lieutenants, dreading the punishmentallotted in China to want of success, went over to the Tartars, and tookservice under Meha.

The Emperor, fully aroused to the gravity of the danger, assembled hisarmy, and placing himself at its head marched against the Tartars.Encouraged by the result of several preliminary encounters, the Emperorwas eager to engage Meha's main army, and after some weeks' searchingand manoeuvring, the two forces halted in front of each other. Kaotsou,imagining that victory was within his grasp, and believing the storiesbrought to him by spies of the weakness of the Tartar army, resolved onan immediate attack. He turned a deaf ear to the cautious advice of oneof his generals, who warned him that "in war we should never despise anenemy," and marched in person at the head of his advance guard to findthe Tartars. Meha, who had been at all these pains to throw dust in theEmperor's eyes and to conceal his true strength, no sooner saw how wellhis stratagem had succeeded, and that Kaotsou was rushing into the trapso elaborately laid for him, than by a skilful movement he cut off hiscommunications with the main body of his army, and, surrounding him withan overwhelming force, compelled him to take refuge in the city ofPingching in Shensi.

With a very short supply of provisions, and hopelessly outnumbered, itlooked as if the Chinese Emperor could not possibly escape the grasp ofthe desert chief. In this strait one of his officers suggested as a lastchance that the most beautiful virgin in the town should be discovered,and sent as a present to mollify the conqueror. Kaotsou seized at thissuggestion, as the drowning man will catch at a straw, and the story ispreserved, though her name has passed into oblivion, of how the youngChinese girl entered into the plan and devoted all her wits to charmingthe Tartar conqueror. She succeeded as much as their fondest hopes couldhave led them to believe; and Meha permitted Kaotsou, after signing anignominious treaty, to leave his place of confinement and rejoin hisarmy, glad to welcome the return of the Emperor, yet without himhelpless to stir a hand to effect his release. Meha retired to his ownterritory, well satisfied with the material results of the war and therich booty which had been obtained in the sack of Chinese cities, whileKaotsou, like the ordinary type of an oriental ruler, vented hisdiscomfiture on his subordinates.

The closing acts of the war were the lavishing of rewards on the head ofthe general to whose warnings he had paid no heed, and the execution ofthe scouts who had been misled by the wiles of Meha.

The success which had attended this incursion and the spoil of war werepotent inducements to the Tartars to repeat the invasion. While Kaotsouwas meditating over the possibility of revenge, and considering schemesfor the better protection of his frontier, the Tartars, disregarding thetruce that had been concluded, retraced their steps, and pillaged theborder districts with impunity. In this year (B.C. 199) they werecarrying everything before them, and the Emperor, either unnerved byrecent disaster or appalled at the apparently irresistible energy of thefollowers of Meha, remained apathetic in his palace. The representationsof his ministers and generals failed to rouse him from his stupor, andthe weapon to which he resorted was the abuse of his opponent, and nothis prompt chastisement. Meha was "a wicked and faithless man, who hadrisen to power by the murder of his father, and one with whom oaths andtreaties carried no weight." In the mean while the Tartars werecontinuing their victorious career. The capital itself could not bepronounced safe from their assaults, or from the insult of theirpresence.

In this crisis counsels of craft and dissimulation alone found favor inthe Emperor's cabinet. No voice was raised in support of the bold andonly true course of going forth to meet the national enemy. Thecapitulation of Pingching had for the time destroyed the manhood of therace, and Kaotsou held in esteem the advice of men widely different tothose who had placed him on the throne. Kaotsou opened freshnegotiations with Meha, who concluded a treaty on condition of theEmperor's daughter being given to him in marriage, and on the assumptionthat he was an independent ruler. With these terms Kaotsou felt obligedto comply, and thus for the first time this never-ceasing collisionbetween the tribes of the desert and the agriculturists of the plains ofChina closed with the admitted triumph of the former. The contest wassoon to be renewed with different results, but the triumph of Meha wasbeyond question.[47]

[Footnote 47: One historian had the courage to declare that "Never wasso great a shame inflicted on the Middle Kingdom, which then lost itsdignity and honor."]

The weakness thus shown against a foreign foe brought its own punishmentin domestic troubles. The palace became the scene of broils, plots, andcounterplots, and so badly did Kaotsou manage his affairs at this epochthat one of his favorite generals raised the standard of revolt againsthim through apparently a mere misunderstanding. In this instance Kaotsoueasily put down the rising, but others followed which, if not pregnantwith danger, were at the least extremely troublesome. The murder ofHansin, to whose aid Kaotsou owed his elevation to the throne as much asto any other, by order of the empress, during a reception at the palace,shook confidence still more in the ruler, and many of his followers wereforced into open rebellion through dread of personal danger. What wonderthat, as he has said, "the very name of revolt inspired Kaotsou withapprehension."

In B.C. 195 we find Kaotsou going out of his way to visit the tomb ofConfucius. Shortly after this event it became evident that he wasapproaching his end. His eldest son Hiaohoei was proclaimed heirapparent. Kaotsou died in the fifty-third year of his age, havingreigned as emperor during eight years. The close of his reign did notbear out all the promise of its commencement; and the extent of hisauthority was greatly curtailed by the disastrous effects of the warwith the Tartars and the subsequent revolts among his generals.

Despite these reverses there remains much in favor of his character. Hehad performed his part in the consolidation of the Hans; it remained forthose who came after him to complete what he left half finished.

Under Hoeiti, the Tartar King Meha sent an envoy to the capital, buteither the form or the substance of his message enraged theempress-mother, who ordered his execution. The two peoples were thusagain brought to the brink of war, but eventually the difference wassunk for the time, and the Chinese chroniclers have represented that thesatisfactory turn in the question was due to Meha seeing the error ofhis ways.[48] Not long afterward the Tartar King died, and was succeededby his son Lao Chang.

[Footnote 48: Meha's letter of excuse is thus given: "In the barbarouscountry which I govern both virtue and the decencies of life areunknown. I have been unable to free myself from them, and, therefore, Iblush. China has her wise men; that is a happiness which I envy. Theywould have prevented my being wanting in the respect due to your rank."]

ALEXANDER REDUCES TYRE: LATER FOUNDS ALEXANDRIA

B.C. 332

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

(The master spirit who could sigh for more worlds to conquer was at thistime high in his dazzling flight. Alexander has always been consideredone of the most striking and picturesque characters of history. Hispersonality was pleasing, his endurance remarkable, and couragedauntless. Educated by Aristotle, his keen mind was well trained. He wasskilled in horsemanship, and his control over the fiery Bucephalus,untamable by others, has become a household tale in all lands. Therenever was a more kingly prince.

A king at twenty, his career has been an object of wonder to succeedinggenerations. He shot like a meteor across the sky of ancientcivilization. His military achievements were remarkable for quickness ofconception and rapidity of execution; his life was a progress fromconquest to conquest. Alexander's army, with its solid phalanx, itsdarting cavalry, and light troops, had become irresistible. He possessedNapoleon's ability to select good generals and to make the most of histalents. In battle Alexander was entirely devoid of fear. After avictory his chief thoughts were for the wounded. Like Napoleon, he alsopossessed that personal equation of absolute popularity with hissoldiers. Their devotion to him was simply complete.

After Thebes came the invasion of Asia. The invincible Macedonian hadfought and won the battle of the Granicus. In this battle nearly all ofthe Persian leaders were slain, and its result spread terror throughoutPersia. Halicarnassus was next reduced. The march of Alexander was everonward. In the citadel of Gordium he cut the "Gordian knot," andprophecy marked him for the lord of Asia.

And now Darius marched to meet him, making a fatally bad choice ofbattle-ground. Darius was totally defeated at the celebrated battle ofIssus, although he had anticipated a victory. After the Persian rout andthe flight of Darius, whose numbers counted for nothing before theMacedonian's skill, Lindon welcomed the invaders, and Alexanderdetermined to take Tyre. This was accomplished after a siege, which wasattended with much cruelty.

The siege of Gaza followed, in which nearly all of the citizensperished. In B.C. 332 Alexander began his expedition to Egypt. Heconciliated the natives by paying honors to their gods. In his progresshe was struck by the advantages of a certain site for a city, andfounded there the town which is now called Alexandria.)

All Phoenicia was subdued except Tyre, the capital city. This city wasjustly entitled the "Queen of the Sea," that element bringing to it thetribute of all nations. She boasted of having first invented navigationand taught mankind the art of braving the winds and waves by theassistance of a frail bark. The happy situation of Tyre, at the upperend of the Mediterranean; the conveniency of its ports, which were bothsafe and capacious; and the character of its inhabitants, who wereindustrious, laborious, patient, and extremely courteous to strangers,invited thither merchants from all parts of the globe; so that it mightbe considered, not so much a city belonging to any particular nation, asthe common city of all nations and the centre of their commerce.

Alexander thought it necessary, both for his glory and his interest, totake this city. The spring was now coming on. Tyre was at that timeseated on an island of the sea, about a quarter of a league from thecontinent. It was surrounded by a strong wall, a hundred and fifty feethigh, which the waves of the sea washed; and the Carthaginians, a colonyfrom Tyre, a mighty people, and sovereigns of the ocean, promised tocome to the assistance of their parent State. Encouraged, therefore, bythese favorable circumstances, the Tyrians determined not to surrender,but to hold out the place to the last extremity. This resolution,however imprudent, was certainly magnanimous, but it was soon afterfollowed by an act which was as blamable as the other was praiseworthy.

Alexander was desirous of gaining the place rather by treaty than byforce of arms, and with this in view sent heralds into the town withoffers of peace; but the inhabitants were so far from listening to hisproposals, or endeavoring to avert his resentment by any kind ofconcession, that they actually killed his ambassadors and threw theirbodies from the top of the walls into the sea. It is easy to imaginewhat effect so shocking an outrage must produce in a mind likeAlexander's. He instantly resolved to besiege the place, and not todesist until he had made himself master of it and razed it to theground.

As Tyre was divided from the continent by an arm of the sea, there wasnecessity for filling up the intermediate space with a bank or pier,before the place could be closely invested. This work, accordingly, wasimmediately undertaken and in a great measure completed; when all thewood, of which it was principally composed, was unexpectedly burned bymeans of a fire-ship sent in by the enemy. The damage, however, was verysoon repaired, and the mole rendered more perfect than formerly, andcarried nearer to the town, when all of a sudden a furious tempestarose, which, undermining the stonework that supported the wood, laidthe whole at once in the bottom of the sea.

Two such disasters, following so closely on the heels of each other,would have cooled the ardor of any man except Alexander, but nothingcould daunt his invincible spirit, or make him relinquish an enterprisehe had once undertaken. He, therefore, resolved to prosecute the siege;and in order to encourage his men to second his views, he took care toinspire them with the belief that heaven was on their side and wouldsoon crown their labors with the wished-for success. At one time he gaveout that Apollo was about to abandon the Tyrians to their doom, andthat, to prevent his flight, they had bound him to his pedestal with agolden chain; at another, he pretended that Hercules, the tutelar deityof Macedon, had appeared to him, and, having opened prospects of themost glorious kind, had invited him to proceed to take possession ofTyre.

These favorable circumstances were announced by the augurs asintimations from above; and every heart was in consequence cheered. Thesoldiers, as if that moment arrived before the city, forgetting all thetoils they had undergone and the disappointments they had suffered,began to raise a new mole, at which they worked incessantly.

To protect them from being annoyed by the ships of the enemy, Alexanderfitted out a fleet, with which he not only secured his own men, butoffered the Tyrians battle, which, however, they thought proper todecline, and withdrew all their galleys into the harbor.

The besiegers, now allowed to proceed unmolested, went on with the workwith the utmost vigor, and in a little time completed it and brought itclose to the walls. A general attack was therefore resolved on, both bysea and land, and with this in view the King, having manned his galleysand joined them together with strong cables, ordered them to approachthe walls about midnight and attack the city with resolution. But justas the assault was going to begin, a dreadful storm arose, which notonly shook the ships asunder, but even shattered them in a terriblemanner, so that they were all obliged to be towed toward the shore,without having made the least impression on the city.

The Tyrians were elated with this gleam of good fortune; but that joywas of short duration, for in a little time they received intelligencefrom Carthage that they must expect no assistance from that quarter, asthe Carthaginians themselves were then overawed by a powerful army ofSyracusans, who had invaded their country. Reduced, therefore, to thehard necessity of depending entirely upon their own strength and theirown resources, the Tyrians sent all their women and children toCarthage, and prepared to encounter the very last extremities. For nowthe enemy was attacking the place with greater spirit and activity thanever. And, to do the Tyrians justice, it must be acknowledged that theyemployed a number of methods of defence which, considering the rudestate of the art of war at that early period, were really astonishing.They warded off the darts discharged from the ballisters against them,by the assistance of turning wheels, which either broke them to piecesor carried them another way. They deadened the violence of the stonesthat were hurled at them, by setting up sails and curtains made of asoft substance which easily gave way.

To annoy the ships which advanced against their walls, they fixedgrappling irons and scythes to joists or beams; then, straining theircatapultas--an enormous kind of crossbow--they laid those great piecesof timber upon them instead of arrows, and shot them off on a sudden atthe enemy. These crushed some of their ships by their great weight, and,by means of the hooks or hanging scythes, tore others to pieces. Theyalso had brazen shields, which they drew red-hot out of the fire; andfilling these with burning sand, hurled them in an instant from the topof the wall upon the enemy.

There was nothing the Macedonians dreaded so much as this fatalinstrument; for the moment the burning sand got to the flesh through thecrevices of the armor, it penetrated to the very bone, and stuck soclose that there was no pulling it off; so that the soldiers, throwingdown their arms, and tearing their clothes to pieces, were in thismanner exposed, naked and defenceless, to the shot of the enemy.

Alexander, finding the resources and even the courage of the Tyriansincreased in proportion as the siege continued, resolved to make a lasteffort, and attack them at once both by sea and land, in order, ifpossible, to overwhelm them with the multiplicity of dangers to whichthey would be thus exposed. With this view, having manned his galleyswith some of the bravest of his troops, he commanded them to advanceagainst the enemy's fleet, while he himself took his post at the head ofhis men on the mole.

And now the attack began on all sides with irresistible and unremittingfury. Wherever the battering-rams had beat down any part of the wall,and the bridges were thrown out, instantly the argyraspides mounted thebreach with the utmost valor, being led on by Admetus, one of thebravest officers in the army, who was killed by the thrust of a spear ashe was encouraging his soldiers.

The presence of the King, and the example he set, fired his troops withunusual bravery. He himself ascended one of the towers on the mole,which was of a prodigious height, and there was exposed to the greatestdangers he had ever yet encountered; for being immediately known by hisinsignia and the richness of his armor, he served as a mark for all thearrows of the enemy. On this occasion he performed wonders, killing withjavelins several of those who defended the wall; then, advancing nearerto them, he forced some with his sword, and others with his shield,either into the city or the sea, the tower on which he fought almosttouching the wall.

He soon ascended the wall, followed by his principal officers, andpossessed himself of two towers and the space between them. Thebattering-rams had already made several breaches; the fleet had forcedits way into the harbor; and some of the Macedonians had possessedthemselves of the towers which were abandoned. The Tyrians, seeing theenemy masters of their rampart, retired toward an open place, calledAgenor, and there stood their ground; but Alexander, marching up withhis regiment of bodyguards, killed part of them and obliged the rest tofly.

At the same time, Tyre being taken on that side which lay toward theharbor, a general carnage of the citizens ensued, and none was spared,except the few that fell into the hands of the Siclonians in Alexander'sarmy, who--considering the Tyrians as countrymen--granted themprotection and carried them privately on board their ships.

The number that was slaughtered on this occasion is almost incredible;even after conquest, the victor's resentment did not subside. He orderedno less than five thousand men, who were taken in the storming, to benailed to crosses along the shore. The number of prisoners amounted tothirty thousand and were all sold as slaves in different parts of theworld. Thus fell Tyre, that had been for many ages the most flourishingcity in the world, and had spread the arts and commerce into theremotest regions.

While Alexander was employed in the siege of Tyre he received a secondletter from Darius, in which that monarch treated him with greaterrespect than before. He now gave him the title of king; he offered himten thousand talents as a ransom for his captive mother and queen; andhe promised him his daughter Statira in marriage, with all the countryhe had conquered, as far as the river Euphrates, provided he would agreeto a peace. These terms were so advantageous that, when the King debatedupon them in council, Parmenio, one of his generals, could not helpobserving that he would certainly accept of them were he Alexander. "Andso would I," replied the King, "were I Parmenio!" But deeming itinconsistent with his dignity to listen to any proposals from a man whomhe had so lately overcome, he haughtily rejected them, and scorned toaccept of that as a favor which he already considered his own byconquest.

From Tyre, Alexander marched to Jerusalem, fully determined to punishthat city for having refused to supply his army with provisions duringthe siege; but his resentment was mollified by a deputation of thecitizens coming out to meet him, with their high priest, Taddua, beforethem, dressed in white, and having a mitre on his head, on the front ofwhich the name of God was written. The moment the King perceived thehigh priest, he advanced toward him with an air of the most profoundrespect, bowed his body, adored the august name upon his front, andsaluted him who wore it with religious veneration.

And when some of his courtiers expressed their surprise that he, who wasadored by everyone, should adore the high priest of the Jews: "I donot," said he, "adore the high priest, but the God whose minister he is;for while I was at Dium in Macedonia, my mind wholly fixed on the greatdesign of the Persian war, as I was revolving the methods how to conquerAsia, this very man, dressed in the same robes, appeared to me in adream, exhorted me to banish my fear, bade me cross the Hellespontboldly, and assured me that God would march at the head of my army andgive me the victory over the Persians." This speech, delivered with anair of sincerity, no doubt had its effect in encouraging the army andestablishing an opinion that his mission was from heaven.

From Jerusalem he went to Gaza, where, having met with a more obstinateresistance than he expected, he cut to pieces the whole garrison,consisting of ten thousand men. Not satisfied with this act of cruelty,he caused holes to be bored through the heels of Boetis, the governor,and tying him with cords to the back of his chariot dragged him in thismanner around the walls of the city. This he did in imitation ofAchilles, whom Homer describes as having dragged Hector around the wallsof Troy in the same manner. It was reading the past to very little, orrather, indeed, to very bad purpose, to imitate this hero in the mostunworthy part of his character.

Alexander, having left a garrison in Gaza, turned his arms toward Egypt;of which he made himself master without opposition. Here he formed thedesign of visiting the temple of Jupiter, which was situated in thesandy deserts of Lybia at the distance of twelve days' journey fromMemphis, the capital of Egypt. His chief object in going thither was toget himself acknowledged the son of Jupiter, an honor he had longaspired to. In this journey he founded the city of Alexandria, whichsoon became one of the greatest towns in the world for commerce.

Nothing could be more dreary than the desert through which he passed,nor anything more charming--according to the fabulous accounts of thepoets--than the particular spot where the temple was situated.

It was a perfect paradise in the midst of an immeasurable wilderness. Atlast, having reached the place, and appeared before the altar of thedeity, the priest, who was no stranger to Alexander's wishes, declaredhim to be the son of Jupiter.

The conqueror, elated with this high compliment, asked whether he shouldhave success in his expedition. The priest answered that he should bemonarch of the world. The conqueror inquired if his father's murdererswere punished. The priest replied that his father Jupiter was immortal,but that the murderers of Philip had all been extirpated.

THE BATTLE OF ARBELA

B.C. 331

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

(When Alexander, having returned from his campaign against thebarbarians of the North, had suppressed a revolt which meanwhile hadbroken out in Greece, he found himself free for undertaking those greatforeign conquests which he had planned. When he left Greece to conquerthe world, he said farewell to his own country forever. Crossing theHellespont into Asia Minor with a small but well equipped anddisciplined army, he advanced unopposed until he reached the riverGranicus, where he found himself confronted with a Persian host. Uponthis army he inflicted a defeat so signal as to bring at once tosubmission nearly the whole of Asia Minor. He next advanced into Syriaand met the Persian king, Darius III, who in person commanded an immensebody of soldiers, against which the young conqueror fought at Issus,winning a decisive victory. He not only captured the Persian camp, butalso secured the King's treasures and took his family prisoners. Fromthis time Alexander held complete mastery of the western dominions ofDarius, whom the conqueror afterward dethroned.

After he had next invaded and subjugated Egypt and there founded thecity of Alexandria, he pursued King Darius, who had taken flight, intothe very heart of his empire, where the Persian monarch, on the plainsof Gaugamela, near the village of Arbela, made his last stand againsthis invincible foe. Of the battle to which Arbela gave its name, andwhich proved the death-blow of the Persian empire, Creasy's narrativefurnishes a realistic description.)

A long and not uninstructive list might be made out of illustrious menwhose characters have been vindicated during recent times fromaspersions which for centuries had been thrown on them. The spirit ofmodern inquiry, and the tendency of modern scholarship, both of whichare often said to be solely negative and destructive, have, in truth,restored to splendor, and almost created anew, far more than they haveassailed with censure or dismissed from consideration as unreal.

The truth of many a brilliant narrative of brilliant exploits has oflate years been triumphantly demonstrated, and the shallowness of thesceptical scoffs with which little minds have carped at the great mindsof antiquity has been in many instances decisively exposed. The laws,the politics, and the lines of action adopted or recommended by eminentmen and powerful nations have been examined with keener investigationand considered with more comprehensive judgment than formerly werebrought to bear on these subjects. The result has been at least as oftenfavorable as unfavorable to the persons and the states so scrutinized,and many an oft-repeated slander against both measures and men has thusbeen silenced, we may hope forever.

The veracity of Herodotus, the pure patriotism of Pericles, ofDemosthenes, and of the Gracchi, the wisdom of Clisthenes and ofLicinius as constitutional reformers, may be mentioned as facts whichrecent writers have cleared from unjust suspicion and censure. And itmight be easily shown that the defensive tendency which distinguishesthe present and recent great writers of Germany, France, and England hasbeen equally manifested in the spirit in which they have treated theheroes of thought and heroes of action who lived during what we term theMiddle Ages, and whom it was so long the fashion to sneer at or neglect.

The name of the victor of Arbela has led to these reflections; for,although the rapidity and extent of Alexander's conquests have throughall ages challenged admiration and amazement, the grandeur of geniuswhich he displayed in his schemes of commerce, civilization, and ofcomprehensive union and unity among nations, has, until lately, beencomparatively unhonored. This long-continued depreciation was of earlydate. The ancient rhetoricians--a class of babblers, a school for liesand scandal, as Niebuhr justly termed them--chose, among the stockthemes for their commonplaces, the character and exploits of Alexander.

They had their followers in every age; and, until a very recent period,all who wished to "point a moral or adorn a tale," about unreasoningambition, extravagant pride, and the formidable frenzies of free willwhen leagued with free power, have never failed to blazon forth theso-called madman of Macedonia as one of the most glaring examples.Without doubt, many of these writers adopted with implicit credencetraditional ideas, and supposed, with uninquiring philanthropy, that inblackening Alexander they were doing humanity good service. But also,without doubt, many of his assailants, like those of other great men,have been mainly instigated by "that strongest of all antipathies, theantipathy of a second-rate mind to a first-rate one," and by the envywhich talent too often bears to genius.

Arrian, who wrote his history of Alexander when Hadrian was emperor ofthe Roman world, and when the spirit of declamation and dogmatism was atits full height, but who was himself, unlike the dreaming pedants of theschools, a statesman and a soldier of practical and proved ability, wellrebuked the malevolent aspersions which he heard continually thrown uponthe memory of the great conqueror of the East.

He truly says: "Let the man who speaks evil of Alexander not merelybring forward those passages of Alexander's life which were really evil,but let him collect and review _all_ the actions of Alexander, and thenlet him thoroughly consider first who and what manner of man he himselfis, and what has been his own career; and then let him consider who andwhat manner of man Alexander was, and to what an eminence of humangrandeur _he_ arrived. Let him consider that Alexander was a king, andthe undisputed lord of the two continents, and that his name is renownedthroughout the whole earth.

"Let the evil-speaker against Alexander bear all this in mind, and thenlet him reflect on his own insignificance, the pettiness of his owncircumstances and affairs, and the blunders that he makes about these,paltry and trifling as they are. Let him then ask himself whether he isa fit person to censure and revile such a man as Alexander. I believethat there was in his time no nation of men, no city, nay, no singleindividual with whom Alexander's name had not become a familiar word. Itherefore hold that such a man, who was like no ordinary mortal, was notborn into the world without some special providence."

And one of the most distinguished soldiers and writers, Sir WalterRaleigh, though he failed to estimate justly the full merits ofAlexander, has expressed his sense of the grandeur of the part played inthe world by "the great Emathian conqueror" in language that welldeserves quotation:

"So much hath the spirit of some one man excelled as it hath undertakenand effected the alteration of the greatest states and commonweals, theerection of monarchies, the conquest of kingdoms and empires, guidedhandfuls of men against multitudes of equal bodily strength, contrivedvictories beyond all hope and discourse of reason, converted the fearfulpassions of his own followers into magnanimity, and the valor of hisenemies into cowardice; such spirits have been stirred up in sundry agesof the world, and in divers parts thereof, to erect and cast down again,to establish and to destroy, and to bring all things, persons, andstates to the same certain ends which the infinite spirit of the_Universal_, piercing, moving, and governing all things, hath ordained.Certainly, the things that this King did were marvellous and wouldhardly have been undertaken by anyone else; and though his father haddetermined to have invaded the Lesser Asia, it is like enough that hewould have contented himself with some part thereof, and not havediscovered the river of Indus, as this man did."

A higher authority than either Arrian or Raleigh may now be referred toby those who wish to know the real merit of Alexander as a general, and